M. Arslan, self-portrait, 2009.
She was born in a small mixed Kurdish-Arab village near Mardin, situated in eastern Turkey. Having worked as a journalist for six consecutive years, she began to shoot short films and documentaries, mainly focused on women, immigrants, and cultural issues. She received several national and international awards with her first short film, The Last Game, (2006). Her first documentary, A Fatal Dress Polygamy (2009), was broadcast on a mainstream channel in Turkey and hit over 1.7 million views on YouTube. Her first feature documentary, I Flew You Stayed, (2012) has won several awards, including the Turkish Association of Film Critics, Documentary of the Year (2013), Best Documentary Award in Amed Film Festival, and Mirella Galetti Award in Italy (2014). The short film Houses with Small Windows that she co-wrote and acted in was selected for the Official Competition at the Venice Film Festival (2013) and won the European Short Film Award alongside many other awards. She has an MA in cinema from Marmara University Turkey and recently completed her second MA in Digital Documentary at the Royal Holloway University of London. She also attended Les Arcs Film, School Village, (2013), Berlinale Talents (2015), Milena Jelinek, and Nick Proffers scriptwriting classes (2010).
She obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Therapeutic Arts from the University of East London and IATE and a Diploma in Child Counselling at IATE.
She is leading a practical documentary filmmaking workshop for women with documentary filmmaker Katy McGahan in London.
She is a mother of two children and lives and works in London.
“I'm inspired to use filmmaking as a platform to spark discussions and shed light on the stories of those who often go unseen. Creating a fair world is important to me, and I believe that sharing these stories can foster a sense of connection and empathy between individuals.” MA
“A very rare sample of nominative documentary, which succeeds in setting light to a generation having gone through a trauma due to the political turmoil of an era.”
— Alin Tasciyan – Film critic
“My expectation from the documentary films aiming at touching upon social traumas is whether they can put the audience to shame or not. Feeling embarrassment reminds us of us and our responsibilities to the course of events. In my estimation the unadorned power of a personal story is one of the important keys of both shooting a documentary film and the reality. “I Flew, You Stayed”, without falling back upon big talks, displays important hints in respect of the war having been going on in Turkey for thirty years. The rest depends upon your own story and how you watch a film or the life itself.” Murathan Mungan – Poet/Writer
“Mizgin Müjde Arslan is a brave first person filmmaker who searches for traces of the activist father she never got to know, but who was father, leader, and inspiration to many who she encounters on her journey. A sensitively crafted film, with touching encounters with family and strangers alike, I Flew, You Stayed reveals the personal consequences of the long and protracted Kurdish struggle in Turkey.”
— Dr Alisa Lebow – Senior Lecturer in Screen Media, Brunel University School of Arts
“How do documentary narratives that are crafted through the pursuit of
personal, life stories, longed-for family members, and childhood recollections contest
hegemonic ideologies about identity? In this article, I focus on the documentary film, I
Flew You Stayed (2012), by Mizgin Müjde Arslan as a reflexive narrative following the
traces of a longed-for but absent family member and, in so doing, uncovering an
obscure life story. In her film, Arslan is looking for her father, whom she has never seen.
As she seeks her father’s grave, in order to fill in painful gaps in her life journey, she
winds up uncovering a restless history construed by ideologies that silence counter-
hegemonic voices in unique ways.”
— Dr Suncem Kocer, from an article published in Moment Journal
M. Arslan, London, Photo by Zhan Xiao, Autumn - 2021
M. Arslan, London, Photo by Gulseren Das, January - 2024